Soto shows off improved glove with leaping grab at wall

The ball went flying off Adam Duvall's bat and all eyes immediately turned toward Juan Soto in deep left field to gauge just how well Duvall had hit it.

The way he calmly backtracked to the wall, Soto certainly seemed to have a bead on it. But when he ran out of real estate and had to leap, the crowd at Nationals Park held its collective breath, waiting to see which side of said wall it would come down on.

Only Soto knew for sure he was going to haul it in.

"I never thought it's going to be that close to the wall," he said. "I just jumped, because the ball was high. And then when I hit the wall I was like: 'Oh, this is closer than I thought.' But I've been feeling really good in left field."

Yes, he has. And Monday night's leaping catch to rob Duvall of at least a two-run double (and possibly a three-run homer) was perhaps the best example to date of it.

When Soto first reached the majors last summer, the 19-year-old admittedly had to learn how to play left field on the fly, at the sport's highest level. A right fielder throughout his brief minor league career, he barely had spent any time on the other side of the field, and it showed.

"At the beginning of last year when he first got called up, you could tell," third baseman Anthony Rendon said. "Maybe it was the big lights. Maybe it was the third deck. Whatever it might have been, just like all of us all have those feelings when we first get called up."

Manager Davey Martinez and third base coach Bob Henley (who also serves as the Nationals' outfield instructor) have worked daily with Soto ever since, especially on fine-tuning those plays where he has to track back to the wall.

They've instructed Soto to play deeper to begin with, but they've also helped teach him how to glide back to make those plays and not to drift and get caught flat-footed.

"We've talked about him starting back," Martinez said. "He's better coming in on balls. He put himself in a great position. Got back relatively easy. And made a great play."

And what did it feel like to haul Duvall's drive in and save the Nationals from potential disaster?

"That feels amazing," Soto said. "That feels really good. That's like hitting a homer for me."